Habits of Five Highly Effective People
by Shane C
Summary: A play on the book, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." Just a set of five drabbles based on changes the war might have had on the five human members of the Animorphs.
1. Jake

**Habits of Five Highly Effective People**

_Jake_

After some screw-ups – some nearly tragic – I'd realized a basic fact about myself. A rested mind thinks clearly, and a tired mind makes mistakes.

The obvious solution was to get as much rest as possible. Easier said than done, when you're leading the only resistance to the Yeerk invasion of Earth.

My first period teacher was a total Nazi, so sleeping in his class was out. I'd learned that by relaxing my body and resting my head on my fist, I could make it look like I was paying attention while still drifting off into a state a lot like actual sleep.

My second period was World History. I was good enough in that class to get away with naps during videos and lectures. My teacher was a laid-back hippie sort of guy, and didn't mind me doing it, because I always scored above average on the tests. My brain seemed to want the knowledge he droned on about, and even asleep, I absorbed most of it. Especially the stuff about famous leaders and historical wars and battles – that was information that helped me in my day to day life.

After that, I had lunch. After lunch was biology, and the lab was empty while everyone was in the cafeteria, eating. So, I'd figured out that by scarfing my food on the walk from history to the bio lab and using the lunch period to sleep at my lab table until the other kids started coming in for class, I was catching another solid half an hour.

The last class of the day was algebra. That was always a maybe for catching some Z's – we tested twice a week, so if I paid attention during the lessons and zoomed through my tests, I was able to rest up just about every other day. Even on lecture days, I was usually wide awake by the time the final bell rolled around, just in time to deal with my _real _job – figuring out what the Yeerks were planning, and setting my own plan to screw up theirs'.


	2. Rachel

_Rachel_

Morphing is a powerful weapon. It's so awesome because it's not one-sided; we can use it for attack, defense, infiltration, escape. The list goes on. But a true warrior doesn't just mind the weapon she has. She has to take care of the weapon she _is_.

For all of its advantages, morphing has its weaknesses, too. Time limit is a big one. On any mission, chances are good that a morph change, for whatever reason, will be necessary. We're never more vulnerable than when we're human, and not just because humans don't really have any natural weapons. If a controller ever found out that we were human, that would be the ballgame.

It hadn't happened yet, but we'd had several close calls with it. It was with that in mind that I signed up for the self-defense classes at the YMCA. What's the point of self-defense? To strike hard and fast, to incapacitate your attacker before he can do it to you. I hoped it would never be necessary, but if a controller ever found out that I was human, I most likely wouldn't have time to morph into something deadly to take him out.

Throat strikes. Heel to the nose, driving it upward into the brain. Crotch shots. All of these techniques would only work on human controllers, but that was our biggest concern, anyway. Most of the controllers we would come up against here on Earth were human.

The difference between knowing how to throw a proper punch verses an amateur tucking their thumb inside of their fist would probably never matter. Knowing where on the skull a short elbow strike would be most effective would probably never come up. But, then again, maybe it would. Maybe the fate of the human race would come down to me knowing how to do these things.

Probably not. But maybe. That the possibility existed, no matter how small, made it my responsibility to learn them.

So I did.


	3. Marco

_Marco_

Something as simple as conditioning yourself to see things that everyone else misses could be the difference between life and death.

Paying attention doesn't cost anything, and the rewards can be overwhelming. By looking at the world in an observant way, you give yourself a whole world of possibilities that you wouldn't have, otherwise.

The human body is actually really incredible. Before an accident, or an attack, or something like that…if you talk to the survivors, almost a hundred percent of the time they'll tell you they knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what. Some people call it intuition, some people call it a sixth sense. That's bull. It's simple – their senses were trying to tell their brains something, and they were too used to ignoring them to understand before it was too late.

Me? I listen to my senses. I don't just see the world around me – I try to look _through _it. Sure, that guy limping down the road is probably just getting over a broken leg. But why turn your back on the situation before you're sure? Are you going to risk your life on your first assumption, or are you willing to consider that maybe it's the weight of a shotgun hidden inside of his coat that's making him walk funny? 999 times out of 1,000, it's the broken leg thing. But the one time you assume that, it could be the time they're picking buckshot out of your dead body.

Do you understand what I'm saying? When you're born, your brain is hardwired a certain way. Years and years of soft, easy living overrides these basic instincts. Humans are supposed to think _fire _when they smell smoke, not 'so and so left something in the microwave too long.' When you hear sharp popping sounds a few blocks away, you're _supposed _to think _gun_, not _firecracker_. Society has a way of making people dumb and stupid just when they need to be smart and animal.

I don't assume jack crap, anymore. That's a good way to get dead.

When _I_ smell smoke, I think _fire_.


	4. Cassie

_Cassie_

Time management has always been important to me, but I had to make it priority number one after we started resisting the Yeerks.

It would have been easy to make excuses to myself as to why my responsibilities were falling by the wayside. Uh, duh…what's more important, fighting to keep the human race free from alien invaders, or making sure my toilet doesn't have a ring around it?

I have more responsibilities at my house than the others. I'd never resented it, and I never would. I'd always been weirdly proud of the fact that I was more responsible than most kids my age. I got A's in school. That would have been enough to keep most parents happy. Heck, it probably would have been enough to keep mine happy, too. I wanted more for myself than that, though. I didn't want to be a burden on my folks, like so many people my age. I wanted to be an asset. I wanted my parents to be glad to have me around, as opposed to somebody they had to put up with until I was eighteen.

My dad didn't expect me to do all that I do for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. He didn't _expect_ me to wake up an hour before school started to feed and water the animals. Then, when I turned twelve, he didn't _expect _me to start waking up even earlier to give the patients their meds and to change bandages. I did those things because I could, and by doing so, I was making his life easier. He did so much for me. Why not ease his work load as much as I could?

My mom never expected much, either. All she asked of me was to clean up after myself. But how was that fair? That was something I should do without being told. So that's why I cleaned the community bathroom at least once a week. It's why I learned to cook simple meals, so that when she had a long day, I had the ability to take that small chore off of her hands. She spent all day making money to provide for me; wasn't it my responsibility to help her relax when she got home? That's the way I saw it, anyway.

Once the fight with the Yeerks started, responsibility got a whole lot clearer. But just because I was doing something big, _huge_, like fighting in the resistance…that didn't take away all of the reasons I'd been helpful in my own home. It wasn't my mom and dad's fault the Yeerks were here, so why should they have to start working harder because of it? Simple answer – they shouldn't. So, no matter how tough on me it was, some days, I made sure to keep up the high set of standards I'd set for myself.

All about time management. Just because I'd woken up early to work in the clinic, gone to school all day, and worked with the other Animorphs on a mission…just because I'd barely made it home in time to eat with my folks and I was so mentally and physically exhausted I could barely pretend to be conscious…that didn't mean the toothpaste splattered in the sink was going to magically disappear. So, instead of surfing the internet, I'd spot-clean the bathroom. Big deal. So I missed an hour of sleep to help my dad change the oil in his truck. Whatever.

One lesson I've learned by being an Animorph is that bad things happen to everybody. That doesn't make you who you are. How you deal with it _does._

How you choose to manage your time might sound frivolous; it might also be just the thing that defines you.


	5. Tobias

_Tobias_

By looking out for the best interests of my friends, I'm also looking out for myself.

Don't get me wrong. I care a lot about the other Animorphs. Even Marco. The guy gets on my last nerve, sometimes, but he's also undeniably useful to our cause.

I actually think I'm in a better situation than the four totally human members of the group, even though I'm stuck in a hawk body. I mean, look at it logically. I have no family for the Yeerks to find out about and threaten. I don't have an address for them to discover and come scoop me up in the middle of the night. If they did somehow find out about me and figure out roughly where to find me, I'd see and hear them coming. I already have wings to get away from them.

In a lot of ways, I'm lucky.

All of these things that don't weigh on me, personally? They're all threats that my friends face, every day. They don't exactly know it, but I do things to minimize their risks. I watch their parents while they're in school. I have a lot of time to think, and I've come to the conclusion that if we're ever found out, the Yeerks won't go right after them. Morph-capable bodies are too valuable to risk in a half-assed kidnapping. It would make more sense to grab the parents, who could go a long way toward getting slugs in those bodies they would want so badly.

I also check their houses after everyone's gone to bed. I sleep better if I know no one's lurking outside of Rachel's place, or Jake's. The world we live in wasn't exactly safe before, and with the Yeerks, it's ten times more dangerous. A hundred times.

My friends don't know that I do these things for a reason. They all care about me, in their own ways, and they'd tell me to stop it. To not put extra stress on myself.

But it's not just for them. By keeping them safe, I'm also doing a little self-preservation. So I always check up on them, and I always will.


End file.
